I wanted your letter so. I reckoned out the posts, and the distances, and your busyness. I thought that in two days you would probably write, and then I gave you another day’s grace because you hate writing letters, and because I thought you couldn’t dream how much I missed you—how much, how _soon_, I wanted to hear. And then to get your letter the very next day, before I could begin to look for it (but I did look!). Why, you must have written as soon as the train was out of the station! You missed me just as much then? But it’s a mad letter, you know. It makes me laugh and cry. It’s so sensible—and so silly. ‘Fame,’ ‘career,’ ‘reputation,’ ‘position’—why do you fling these words at me? _I_ am making a sacrifice? Darling, haven’t you eyes? Don’t you understand that you’re my world? All these other things, since I’ve known you, they’re shadows, they’re toys, I don’t want them. The reviews of my new book—I’ve never been so delighted at getting any—but why? D’you know why? To show them to you—to watch you shake with laughter as you read them. When a flattering letter turns up, I save it to show you as if it were gold, because I think—‘Perhaps it’ll make him think more of me.’ Isn’t it idiotic? But I do. And all the while I glory in the knowledge that all these things, all the fuss and fame, don’t mean a brass button to you—or to me, my dear, or to me. And yet you write me a solemn letter about ‘making a sacrifice,’ ‘abdicating a position.’ Don’t be—humble. And yet I like you in this mood. Because it won’t last! I won’t _let_ it. It’s I who am not good enough. If you knew how I tip-toe sometimes. You’re so much bigger than I am. I lie in bed at nights, and all the things I’ve done wrong in my life, all the twisty, tortuous, feminine things, all the lies and cowardices and conceits, come and sting me. I’m so bitterly ashamed of them. I feel I’ve got to tell you about them all, and yet that if I do you’ll turn me out of your heart. If you did that—if you were disappointed—if you got tired of me—it turns me sick with fear. I’m a fool to tear myself. I know you love me. And when you’re with me I forget all that. I’m just happy. When you’re there it’s like being in the blazing sunshine. Can ‘celebrity’ give me that sunshine? Can ‘literature’ All my emptiness? Are the books I write children to love me with your eyes? Oh, you fool!